the road not yet taken: a transactional strategies...

The Road Not Yet Taken: A Transactional Strategies Approach to Comprehension InstructionAuthor(s): Rachel BrownSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 61, No. 7 (Apr., 2008), pp. 538-547Published by: International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204627Accessed: 03/11/2009 13:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ira.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

International Reading Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheReading Teacher.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20204627?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ira

The Road Not Yet Taken: A

Transactional Strategies Approach // to

Comprehension Instruction

X^

^\^^ Rachel Brown <^^^^

Transactional strategies instruction can

improve student comprehension, and it

can be implemented across various

reading events in the school day and

applied to different text types.

L

iz Savoca (all names are pseudonyms) started

her comprehension lesson by addressing her stu

dents in the following way:

Well, today's reading group is almost at the end of the

second grade. And we have spent the whole year learn

ing so much about being good readers, and you have be come so much better readers than you were at the

beginning of second grade?it's incredible. And I think

the reason why you've become such good readers is be

cause of what you've learned this year. Let's just sum

marize what we've learned about being a good reader

this year, an expert reader?what you learned that you

know now [that] you didn't know before the second

grade. Let's talk.

Her students jumped in, describing the compre

hension strategies they practiced all year. In quick suc

cession, they called out asking questions, predicting,

making connections to prior knowledge, summariz

ing, visualizing, and using "fix-it" strategies for figuring out unknown words and for clarifying confusions.

After this introduction, Liz remarked that the focal

strategy for that day's lesson was visualizing, or making mental images, of the text's content. She read the first

page from a text called Mushroom in the Rain (Ginsburg,

1991). In this story, creatures of increasing size crowd

under an expanding mushroom during a storm.

After reading a page, Liz described how she pic

tured a little ant seeking shelter from the rain. Without

prompting, Max volunteered a text-to-text connection

to The Mitten (Brett, 1989), another story read earlier

that year: "I have a prediction, urn, this is gonna be

like, urn, like The Mitten one, like urn, these urn, all

these insects are gonna try to come in [the mush

room] ." Liz replied, "You think so? What makes you think that?" Max, alluding to a picture clue, answered,

"Well I see another insect."

"You made that connection? Well, we'll see if

you're right," said Liz, who took this opportunity to

highlight for others how Max coordinated making con

nections, using picture clues, and predicting while

reading. In the process, the students learned not only from their teacher but also from their deep-thinking

and strategy-using peer. At this point, Liz shifted responsibility for modeling

and enacting strategies to her students, "Do you want

to take charge now?" The students assumed control,

alternating reading with discussion. During discussion,

students referred to the various strategies they drew

upon when constructing and defending interpreta tions. For the most part, student voices dominated the

conversation; however, when needed, Liz intervened

to cue strategy use.

When the group finished, they debriefed their use

of strategies. Liz concluded the lesson by praising students:

Well, what I'm so impressed with is the fact [that] I heard some strategies that you used that I didn't help you

[with]. In the beginning of second grade I had to say, "OK, today we're all going to make predictions; today

we're all going to summarize; today we're all going to

try to visualize...." Do you remember when I, we, prac

ticed, practiced, and practiced? And I don't have to do

that anymore because now you're the bosses of your

reading. You choose the strategies that help you under stand. And I am very proud of your thinking. I hope you carry all these strategies in your strategy bag, which is

The Reading Teacher, ?7(7), pp. 538-547 ? 2008 International Reading Association

538 DOM0.1598/RT.61.7.3 ISSN: 0034-0561 print /1936-2714 online

sort of imaginary, isn't it? I hope you carry them to third

grade, and to fourth grade, and to fifth grade, and the rest of your life because they'll always help you. They help me. And if they help me, and I'm a grown-up, they

certainly are gonna help you every step along the way.

As I viewed this reading event, I thought, "Now

here is a classroom that links reading and thinking." At

the same time, I noted four essential components of

instruction: (1) the teaching of comprehension strate

gies, (2) the shifting of strategy use from teacher to stu

dent, (3) the valuing of group learning, and (4) the

lively sharing of ideas.

What I observed was transactional strategies instruc

tion (TSI), an instructional approach that forefronts the

teaching of a small set of research-based strategies with

in the context of collaborative text discussions.

Responsibility for using strategies to construct meaning is shared among all group members. It is a flexible

framework; TSI can be introduced in whole-class, small

group, or one-on-one formats and can be practiced in

teacher-guided or student-managed settings. TSI is based on studies that explored the reading

behaviors of proficient readers. In investigations span

ning several decades, researchers studied skilled read

ing to learn more about interpretive thinking and

strategic actions. From this research, two models of ex

pert reading emerged, the Constructively Responsive Reader Model (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995) and the

Good Strategy User Model (Almasi, 2003). Both theories

depict the knowledge and strategic resources that capa ble readers rely upon when reading. According to these

models, good readers tap their academic and nonacad

emic knowledge, monitor their comprehension (i.e.,

they are metacognitive), and pursue their goals even

when confronted with challenging texts (i.e., they are

motivated). In addition, good readers orchestrate their

use of a small set of research-based strategies:

Good readers make connections and inferences based

on background knowledge. Relating information in the text to personal experiences and to knowledge

about the world and other texts helps readers better

understand what they are reading. Making connec

tions helps because comprehension is all about asso

ciating information on the page with what is stored in one's head.

Good readers predict what happens next in a text.

Making predictions gives the reader a goal for read

ing (i.e., to locate information that verifies the predic

tion) and thus helps the reader stay actively involved

during reading.

Good readers visualize text content. Making mental

images of descriptive passages helps readers connect

the words on the page to their prior knowledge. This

process helps them better understand what they read because they use their prior knowledge to flesh out de tails not provided by the author.

Good readers self-question when confused or curious

about content. Asking questions during reading helps readers to monitor their comprehension. In the

process, they think about other strategies they could use to answer their questions. Asking questions when

curious helps readers attend to the text and stay

motivated?and motivated readers persist with read

ing even when faced with comprehension barriers.

Good readers construct "gist" statements ox summarize

important information, often using their knowledge

of various text structures to construct summaries.

Narrative structures, such as story grammars, or expos

itory text structures, such as comparison-contrast or

cause-effect, signal the most important ideas in a text.

Readers can use these structures to generate

summaries.

Good readers enact problem-solving and clarifying

(i.e., fix-it) strategies. They use strategies such as skip

ping, guessing, sounding out, using context or picture

clues, or rereading when they come across unknown

words or confusing passages. These strategies let read

ers resolve problems on their own rather than requir

ing the assistance of others.

TSI, which is grounded in these theories, prepares

students to become active, independent readers, sim

ilar to the ones described previously. Although teach

ers sometimes introduce the strategies one by one,

students quickly learn to coordinate their use?just as good readers do.

Strategies instruction occurs within the context of

real reading events. That is, strategies are not taught or

practiced in isolation, but rather they are blended into

meaning-oriented text discussions. Although a teacher

initially contributes more than students do to these

discussions?explaining and demonstrating strategic

reasoning?he or she transfers responsibility for strate

gy use as quickly as possible to students. This process

of incrementally shifting control of strategic thinking from teachers to students is known as the Gradual

Release of Responsibility Model (for more informa

tion, see Duke & Pearson, 2002). As the teacher phas es out responsibility, students begin to model and

scaffold effective use of strategies for one another. Yet

even with substantial support, it takes years for

The Road Not Yet Taken: A Transactional Strategies Approach to Comprehension Instruction 539

students to become strategic, motivated, metacogni

tive, and knowledge-exploiting readers.

Several research studies have examined TSI's ben

efits for students. In one yearlong study, I compared the beliefs and instructional practices of two groups of

teachers?one that taught TSI and the other that fur

nished high-quality but conventional reading instruc

tion (Brown, Pressley, Van Meter, & Schuder, 1996). The vignette presented at the beginning of this article

features one of the TSI participants. In the yearlong study, I explored how instruction

al differences between the two groups affected stu

dents' learning and performance. At the beginning and end of the academic year, students completed three assessments: the Stanford Achievement Test, a

retelling task, and a student interview. Students also

participated in a think-aloud task in the late spring. The results showed that TSI students outperformed their non-TSI counterparts in terms of standardized

test performance, interpretive abilities, and knowl

edge and use of strategies. Other studies also indicated advantages for TSI stu

dents. In research on adolescents in grades 6-11, low

achieving students who received TSI instruction made

greater gains on the comprehension subtest of the

Stanford Achievement Test than students in classes in

which no TSI was present (Anderson, 1992). Also,

Collins (1991) found that fifth and sixth graders pro

vided with three days a week of comprehension strate

gies instruction in one semester showed significantly more improvement from pre- to posttesting on a stan

dardized comprehension test than students not receiv

ing such instruction.

A more recent study compared second-grade stu

dents who learned to use strategies as a coordinated

set (i.e., the TSI group) with students who learned the

same strategies one at a time (Reutzel, Smith, & Fawson,

2005). While TSI and non-TSI students did not differ on

standardized reading, motivation, or main-idea meas

ures, the TSI students recalled and retained more infor

mation when reading science texts.

Despite its potential for enhancing comprehension with elementary and high school students, TSI is some

times overlooked in favor of other comprehension

fostering approaches. For example, in a recent article

on comprehension instructional frameworks, TSI did

not make the list (Liang & Dole, 2006). What is more

disconcerting is that TSI was named less often by teach

ers as a comprehension framework that they enacted

with primary-level students (Dougherty Stahl, 2004).

What might account for this situation? For one

thing, teacher educators may be unfamiliar with TSI or

have inadequate time to teach an approach to pre service students that combines four different compo nents (e.g., comprehension strategies use, gradual release of responsibility, collaborative learning, and

interpretive discussion; see Figure 1). Conceivably, the approach may be daunting for practicing teach

ers who juggle multiple, competing demands (Hilden & Pressley, 2007). Or perhaps practicing teachers may lack sufficient support to figure out how to connect

TSI to ongoing instruction.

Thus, this article has two purposes. First, I describe

what TSI instruction entails by presenting the results

from a secondary data analysis of the yearlong study that I conducted with TSI and non-TSI teachers.

Second, I use that information to explain how both

preservice and practicing teachers can begin the

process of teaching TSI.

A Closer Look at TSI Teachers1 Instructional Practices

So what exactly do TSI teachers do? What accounts

for the improved gains experienced by their students?

To shed light on the approach, I revisited the yearlong

study of TSI (Brown et al., 1996) that compared teach

ing practices and their impact on students' learning and performance.

The Participants Participating in the study were 10 teachers?5 in the

TSI group and 5 in the non-TSI group. All teachers

were experienced and worked in different schools in

the same school district. At the start of the study, the

5 TSI teachers had been teaching the approach for a

minimum of two to a maximum of five years. The non

TSI teachers, who were nominated as effective teach

ers by district personnel, did not include explicit

strategies instruction in their teaching. The participating students were six low-achieving,

second graders in each class. All students spoke

English as their first language. All teachers met regular

ly with these and their other students in homoge neous, guided reading groups.

The Context In one part of the yearlong study, all teachers were

videotaped teaching the same two stories in the sec

540 The Reading Teacher Vol. 61, No. 7 April 2008

Figure 1

Dimensions of Transactional Strategies Instruction

"Good strategy user" dimension

Teachers explain that good readers are strategy users.

Teachers share their personal experiences with strategy use.

Teachers point out the importance of thinking while reading. Teachers teach students to coordinate their use of several research-based strategies. Teachers may emphasize one strategy in a given lesson, but they still model and review other strategies to demonstrate how good readers coordinate their strategy use.

Teachers emphasize the role of personal choice, effort, and persistence in enacting strategies. Teachers motivate students' strategy use by showing how applying strategies improves comprehension. Teachers highlight the vital role of prior knowledge activation and connection in comprehension. Teachers emphasize how students' knowledge of their strengths and needs as readers can inform the strategic choices they make.

Teachers stress that good readers set goals for reading, monitor their comprehension, use strategies to overcome

difficulties, and evaluate their progress toward goals.

Gradual release of responsibility model dimension Teachers promote independent strategy use by shifting responsibility for using strategies to students as quickly as

they can.

Teachers explain the benefits of strategy use in general and the value of using specific strategies. Teachers describe when (before, during, or after) and where (with fiction or nonfiction texts) to apply strategies. Teachers mentally model (e.g., think-aloud) to make their thinking apparent to students. Teachers explain and model how interpretations are made using comprehension strategies. Teachers assist students by (a) cueing them to choose a strategy that makes sense in the context, (b) clarifying through reexplanations, (c) seizing teachable moments, (d) modeling use of strategies repeatedly, and (f) tailoring instruction and tasks to meet students' needs and understandings.

Teachers provide guided and independent practice so that students learn to use strategies when cued by a diverse array of goals, needs, task demands, and texts.

Collaborative learning dimension Teachers cue students to support their interpretations by asking "What makes you say so?" or requesting them to use strategies to support their claims, which enables less able students to observe the processes of more capable peers.

Teachers and students construct meaning together. Teachers serve as discussion facilitators, not as directors.

Teachers avoid scripted lessons. They establish a priori objectives, identify one or two focal strategies for a given lesson, and prearrange where and when to explain and model them. However, the teacher is flexible in meeting

set goals depending on the needs of students and the flow of the interpretive discussion.

Interpretive discussion dimension Teachers frequently ask "What are you thinking?" and "What are you feeling?" Teachers do not direct students toward one "correct" interpretation. Teachers promote extended dialogues among participants rather than fostering recitation-style interactions.

Teachers prepare students for discussion by explaining, modeling, and establishing guidelines for active, equitable, and considerate participation in interpretive discussions.

Teachers often refrain from adding interpretive responses to minimize the impact of their statements on students'

comments.

Teachers do not say "You're right" or "That's wrong." Instead they restate students' comments to encourage ?

additional responses. ? - .*

ond half of the year. I examined the teaching prac

tices in one of these lessons in detail. I extracted and

transcribed a five-minute segment from the begin

ning, middle, and end of each lesson. I then analyzed

the transcribed segments, recording the frequency

of recurrent teacher actions. The accuracy of this

analysis was later checked, resulting in 88% agree ment between raters.

The Results TSI and non-TSI teachers differed in their teaching prac tices as revealed from analysis of the videotaped


lessons. A summary of the differences with respect to

the four intersecting dimensions can be found in Table

1.

In terms of the strategies dimension, TSI teachers

differed from non-TSI teachers in their teaching of

comprehension strategies. Practically every TSI

teacher mentioned predicting, making connections to

prior knowledge, summarizing, visualizing, and clari

fying confusions using picture clues. In comparison, the non-TSI teachers focused on teaching prior knowl

edge connections and predicting. TSI and non-TSI teachers differed in the ways they

communicated information to students using the grad ual release of responsibility model. Whereas non-TSI

teachers provided information without describing the

processing or purpose involved, TSI teachers ex

plained strategic processing far more frequently to stu

dents. They also verbalized their thinking and

scaffolded students' thinking considerably more than

their non-TSI counterparts (i.e., only one instance of

either thinking aloud or scaffolding thinking was ob

served). In addition to cuing and coaching, TSI teach

ers elaborated on students' comments, highlighting

strategy use and capitalizing on teachable moments.

In TSI, teachers value collaborative learning and

strategic "transactions" among reading participants. To boost collaborative learning in this study, TSI teach

ers, substantially more than non-TSI teachers, prompt ed students to explain their reasoning during text talk.

When students clarified, extended, or justified their

comments, they drew from personal experience or tex

tual evidence. In the process, they used strategies such

as visualizing, making connections to background

knowledge, and using picture or word clues to support their interpretations. Once students consistently sup

ported their claims, they modeled and reinforced for

one another the kind of strategic discourse good read

ers engage in when talking about texts.

In terms of interpretive discussion, as students col

laborate, group members discuss and negotiate their

interpretations. In TSI classes, teachers have students

think aloud or respond to a text without prompting.

Table 1 A Comparison of Teaching Practices by Group

Code

Strategies: Teachers taught this number of strategies in the videotaped lessons

Explains explicitly: Teacher overtly explained strategic processing or reasoning

Tells: Teacher told information without explaining processing or purpose

Think-alouds: Teacher modeled thinking by verbalizing strategic reasoning Elaborates by explaining: Teacher elaborated by explaining strategic benefits or taking advantage of teachable moments

Seeks extension:

Teacher sought clarification or justification of comment by same or another student

Questions:

Teacher posed initial questions?typically text or reader based

Drills: Teacher drilled for automaticity or checked on knowledge Praises:

Teacher complimented a student's response

Evaluates:

Teacher evaluated accuracy of a student's response

TSI means

5

10

1

4

14

21

9

0

3

5

Non-TSI

means

2

1

18

0

1

14

17

6

11

10

Note. Means are calculated from the raw number of instances observed for each instructional action.


This preference for student initiation was evident in

the study's results. More than TSI teachers, non-TSI

teachers posed initial questions after reading and

drilled students on literal content knowledge. In addi

tion, TSI teachers evaluated and praised students' in

terpretations less often than non-TSI teachers because

they believed that students participated more when

teachers did not interject their own views.

Becoming a TSI Teacher Comprehension instruction, which features as its aim

the development of independent readers, is by defi

nition complex. So, how does a teacher initiate TSI

when faced with such complex demands? My answer

is this: Do not attempt to accomplish everything right from the start. When first learning to teach TSI, teach

ers who participated in the yearlong study incorpo rated aspects from each of the dimensions into

instruction. Once they became comfortable integrat

ing foundational aspects, they "upped the ante" by

adding more elements to the mix.

In the next section, I provide guidelines for devel

oping and practicing teachers as they embark on TSI.

These suggestions are presented in the context of the

four interrelated dimensions of TSI.

The "Good Strategy User" Dimension As you get started, examine your current teaching

practices in relation to the four dimensions presented in Figure 1. Then, following the lead of the TSI teach

ers, try focusing on teaching strategies in some way

every day. When planning lessons, TSI teachers preview their

texts, whether teaching a basal selection to a small

group of students or reading a trade book to an entire

class. These teachers determine in advance which

strategies make sense to emphasize in conjunction with the readings for that week.

For example, when Liz taught Mushroom in the

Rain (Ginsburg, 1991) she chose visualizing because

of the descriptive nature of the text. Because she want

ed to stress points about how good readers use strate

gies, she planned right from the start to reinforce the

notion that good readers intentionally select strategies for particular purposes. As such, she introduced this

idea early in her lesson:

How do you know which one to pull out? How do you know? A carpenter doesn't pull out a hammer when he

wants to screw in a screw. You have to make those deci

sions don't you? Now as expert readers you have to de

cide which strategy to use?which one will work. Do you want to make a prediction at the end of the story neces

sarily? Do you want to use a fix-up strategy if you know all

the words and you understand what the story's about? Do

you want to visualize? If there's a picture right there and,

Gee, that's exactly what you're thinking is happening in

the story, it looks just like what you're imagining, how do you know when to use a connection?

When TSI was first researched, teachers did not

have access to professional texts on TSI or books that

describe the practices of good readers. Luckily, that

situation has changed. If you are interested in TSI, you

might want to read some foundational materials by

yourself or, even better, with others in a study group or

book club. Some great resources to start with include

an historical overview (Pressley et al., 1992) and a

quick description of effective comprehension instruc

tion (Pressley, n.d.). As you experiment with TSI, you also might want

to think more about the nature of good reading. For

example, TSI teachers regularly consider how their pri or knowledge, motivation, metacognition, and strate

gy use come into play while reading. They note how

they apply strategies under diverse conditions; they amass authentic examples for instructional purposes.

Like TSI teachers, you might want to notice and

record instances of your strategic reading to reference

during future instruction.

The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model Dimension

In addition to knowing what good strategy users do, TSI

teachers adopt an instructional framework that gradual

ly moves students from reliance on the teacher to inde

pendence as strategic readers. First of all, TSI teachers

reframe the way they convey information to students.

Instead of simply telling students the name of a strategy and demonstrating its use through a set of fixed proce

dures, TSI teachers explicitly explain the benefits of the

strategy and where and when it can be used.

Very often I hear teachers start their reading les

sons by saying, "Today we will practice how to make

predictions when reading. Vicki, tell me what this sto

ry will be about." In cases like these, the teacher does

not explain any purposes for predicting or reveal the

thinking that underlies the strategy use. In comparison,


listen to how Liz explicitly explains visualizing in her

lesson:

Do you know what I do when I'm reading? I try, as I'm

reading a novel, to make a picture in my mind of the

events that are taking place. If the story takes place in

the setting of woods, I try to visualize the woods in my brain, and I try to visualize what's happening. It helps

me remember when I want to summarize?when I want

to look back and try to think what's happened so far. I

try to think with my brain but also use my visualizing

strategy to picture, "Oh yes, this is what happened first.

Yes, this is what happened second." That helps me

remember.

Here, Liz explained the purpose for using the visu

alizing strategy, linking it to what she knew about her

self as a good reader. She supplemented her initial,

explicit explanation with a think-aloud; she verbalized

her reasoning so students could "see" how she used

the strategy:

Liz: Well, I know what a clearing is?it's where, in

the woods, where they've taken down a lot of

trees, or it's an open space where there aren't

a lot of tall bushes and trees and things like

that. Well, I guess for an ant, though, that could

be pretty small. I'm visualizing a clearing as a

grown-up, and that would be a big place with

out trees. But I'll bet a clearing for a little tiny ant would be just a place [where] there are

maybe bits of leaves to make shadows, but

maybe just grass, just growing around. And so

he's looking?he's looking for something to act

sort of like a...

Marissa: Cover.

Devon: Umbrella.

Liz: Like an umbrella, like an umbrella, to keep him, to keep him dry until the rain stops.

When TSI teachers introduce a strategy, they take

time to explain and model strategies. The large amount

of teacher talk fades as students demonstrate that they can use the strategy with less support. However, TSI

teachers will return to explaining and modeling when

confusions arise. This kind of responsive teaching rep

resents one way that teachers begin to shift responsi

bility from themselves to their students.

For example, Eric skips over many words when he

reads. The teacher suggests that the group reread the

last page together. A student concurs with this decision

by saying, "[It] doesn't really make sense because he

skipped a few words." The teacher, seizing the mo

ment, elaborates, inserting an explicit explanation:

Well, let's...why don't we...why don't we read it. I think

that is good. I think that's a good idea. I do that. I do that. I go back and reread when I don't understand. That's

what good readers do. Let's go back to the top of the

page then.

An Example of Releasing Responsibility to

Students. Teachers support strategy use not just with

in particular lessons but also across time. What follows

is an example of how one teacher might use the grad ual release of responsibility throughout the week.

On Friday afternoon, the teacher previews the texts

she plans to use the following week. She identifies an

appropriate target strategy and then inserts sticky notes

in the text to remind her of what she plans to say during

explicit explanations and modeling. On Monday, the

teacher explains and models the strategy for students

as planned in a whole-class setting?perhaps during an

interactive read-aloud with a story. As she models, she

sometimes mentions or reviews other strategies, but

she maintains her focus on the target strategy. After modeling her thinking on the first page, she

invites students to try to use the strategy. Each student

who reads aloud takes a first crack at thinking aloud in

response to the text just read. If the student does not

respond after a bit of wait time, she asks, "What are

you thinking?" If the student still has trouble respond

ing, she cues that child to select a strategy that makes

sense to use in that context. Then, other students are

invited to share their thinking. Before the end of the

lesson, the class members discuss how using strategies

supported their comprehension. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the

teacher meets with students in small, guided reading

groups. She starts each day, reviewing the target strat

egy's benefits and modeling a small segment of text.

As soon as possible, she engages students in discus

sions about the text they are reading, cuing them to

use the target and other strategies. When possible, she

catches students in the act of using strategies and

transforms those moments into teaching opportuni ties. Aside from these interjections, she lets students

do most of the talking. She will, however, reexplain and re-model when necessary.

While she meets with one guided reading group, the other students use the time to practice the target

strategy. On the first day, students read in pairs and

discuss the assigned text. Before the end of class, stu

dents record their thinking in reading logs, referencing a concrete example in which they used the focal strat


egy. On the second day, as they read from the same

or another text, they describe three instances when

they used the strategy. On Friday, the entire class reconvenes. The

teacher debriefs regarding students' reading experi ences during that week, specifically addressing the

benefits of using the target strategy. Students talk

about what they learned that week about themselves;

they also share how they used other strategies when

reading on their own. As students exchange ideas,

they refer to their reading logs and sticky notes to help them recall their strategy selections.

The teacher takes notes during the debriefing ses

sion and collects students' sticky notes and logs. From

these materials, she assesses students' learning. She

will use this information to determine which students

require additional support and practice. As students move toward independence, the

teacher will provide many opportunities for students

to learn more about when and where to apply a strat

egy. She will support students as they use a strategy with others to support interpretive responses to text. In

addition, students will be expected to use this strate

gy and others when reading diverse texts across the

day, both in school and at home.

An Example of Teaching the Coordinated Use of

Strategies. Research has shown that good readers

use multiple strategies when reading. In keeping with

that premise, TSI teachers help students coordinate

their use of several strategies right from the start in

stead of introducing individual strategies to them one

at a time (Pressley, 2002). Although teachers might tar

get a specific strategy in a given lesson, teachers con

stantly remind students that good readers use many

strategies to make sense of what they read.

How do TSI teachers introduce individual strate

gies while moving students (with the gradual release

of responsibility model) toward coordinated use of

several strategies? Liz's instruction offers some clues

about how to do this. For one, her strategy instruction

always takes place in the context of real reading;

strategies are taught in conjunction with fiction or

nonfiction texts. They might be picture books, nov

els, magazines, textbooks, or basal selections.

Second, when Liz introduces a strategy, she re

minds students that it is just one of several they need

to master. At the beginning of a lesson, Liz explains that while good readers draw on multiple strategies,

today's instruction focuses on a specific strategy. After

providing explicit information about that strategy, she

models its use. However, she also models other strate

gies that are cued by the text. Thus, even if the focal

strategy is visualizing, she makes predictions and per sonal connections?sometimes without supplemen

tary explanations. Using this approach, Liz can reserve

much of her explicit talk for the focal strategy while

still demonstrating what good readers do.

Later in a lesson, Liz coaches students to use the

focal strategy. However, she also cues and reinforces

previously taught strategies. In addition, she takes ad

vantage of teachable moments to highlight students'

spontaneous use of the focal strategy and others.

What is most important is that she promotes flexible

and coordinated use by urging students to select ap

propriate strategies for specific reading conditions.

For instance, even when the focal strategy is making

connections, she has students choose a strategy from

their fix-it kits when they are confused or come across

an unknown word.

Throughout the year, Liz cycles through various

strategies while stressing their roles in a good reader's

total "strategies bag" or "toolkit." By revisiting different

strategies, Liz deepens her students' metacognitive

knowledge and sharpens their strategy use. For exam

ple, in an initial lesson on making connections she

may focus her instruction entirely on making text-to

self connections. In subsequent lessons, she may in

troduce making text-to-world and text-to-text

connections while strengthening students' under

standing and use of text-to-self connections. This re

cursive and cumulative process enables Liz, like other

TSI teachers, to strike a balance. They accentuate the

teaching of a single strategy while helping students to

use a repertoire adaptively. To scaffold students' use of strategies, Liz initiates in

struction with easy text. When introducing a new strat

egy, she explains, models, and cues its use with a

picture book. In this way students concentrate their cog nitive energies on practicing the strategy rather than

being taxed by the demands of complex text (Almasi,

2003). Once students become adept with simpler ma

terials, they can rehearse the strategy with harder ones.

As students begin to orchestrate their strategy use,

Liz's explicit talk and modeling diminishes. She reallo

cates instructional time to interpretive discussions in

which students apply strategies to construct meaning.

Annotated Lesson Plans. One way to become famil

iar with the gradual release of responsibility model is

through the use of annotated lesson plans. I encourage


developing and practicing teachers to insert annota

tions in the margins of plans that correspond to this

model, such as explicit explanations, modeling or

thinking aloud, guided practice, and independent

practice. Using annotations like these sensitizes indi

viduals to think more about how and when to gradual

ly release responsibility. To read examples of

annotated lessons and to learn more about scaffolding instruction in the short and long terms see Almasi

(2003). Another excellent resource is Duffy's

Explaining Reading (2003).

Collaborative Learning Dimension In Liz's classroom, students worked together to make

sense of the text. To facilitate student ownership of

discussion, students took turns as discussion man

agers. As they conversed, they used strategies to gen erate connections, opinions, and predictions.

Periodically, Liz cued students to use evidence to sup

port their claims.

When a fox appeared in the story, the conversa

tion focused on whether the animal wanted to enter

the mushroom to escape the storm or to get a rabbit

dinner. One student immediately suspected the fox's

motives. Another student supported his view by mak

ing a personal connection; he described an incident

in which his pet rabbit was chased by a fox. A third

student extended the discussion, describing, what he

felt, was a comparable situation. He likened the ani

mals in the mushroom to a fox that approached his sis

ter's tent as she and her friends huddled inside.

As these students collaborated, the less able read

ers observed how their more capable peers made use

of strategies. They learned to rely not only upon their

teacher but also upon one another.

As you experiment with TSI, provide opportunities for students to learn from one another by increasing

opportunities for student talk. Pay attention to how

long you talk compared with the time you allocate for

student sharing. The teachers I work with are always amazed at how much they talk in comparison with

their students. Therefore, as soon as you have spent sufficient time explaining and modeling strategies, let

your students take more control. Let them see the true

purpose for strategies instruction: to provide them with

the tools they need to think and talk meaningfully about text and to provide a way for them to learn from

one another.

Interpretive Discussion Dimension The notion that social interaction promotes learning is

not new. However, not all communication patterns af

fect learning in the same way. As a consequence, TSI

teachers opt for more discussion and minimize recita

tion. That is, they steer clear of repetitive cycles of

teacher questioning, student responding, and teacher

evaluating because that communication pattern stifles

interpretative discussion.

Through interpretive discussions, students learn to

apply their strategies to construct meaning. However, one of the trickiest goals for new TSI teachers is to re

lease control of discussion to students. New TSI teach

ers generally ask a series of directed questions after

reading. Students tend to respond to these questions with brief responses instead of engaging one another

in thoughtful discussions.

To encourage interpretive discussion, TSI teachers

often ask just one question if the student reading the

text segment does not automatically respond. That

question is, What are you thinking? I also suggest that

they avoid evaluating the accuracy of students' re

sponses in favor of letting students support and chal

lenge one another using textual or experiential evidence. As students defend their claims, misconcep tions tend to resolve themselves.

Teachers can strive to create an atmosphere in

which everyone's views are respected and interpretive discussion is promoted. The following are the discus

sion guidelines Liz sets at the beginning of the year:

Everyone gets to participate without dominating. The

reader discusses first after an oral reading experience.

Following a reader's think-aloud, others may "jump in." No one is right or wrong. Reading time is also a

talking time. All students must participate.

Make Your Students

Independent Readers Teaching comprehension strategies the transactional

strategies way is demanding. Just as it takes years for

students to internalize and manage their use of strate

gies, it also takes teachers time to coordinate TSI's four

dimensions: (1) highlighting what good strategy users

do, (2) gradually releasing responsibility for strategic

processing to students, (3) promoting opportunities for collaborative learning, and (4) fostering interpre tive discussions. However, unlike students whose TSI

teachers pilot them toward independence, teachers


frequently do not have similar levels of support when

they begin to teach TSI. Therefore, I include some sug

gestions for teachers willing to get started with TSI.

The vignettes illustrate how teachers might ease

into teaching TSI. Of course, I only provide a brief

snapshot of how to mesh TSI with existing reading pro

grams. As you begin the integration process, it is worth

remembering that TSI is a flexible approach and not

a rigid program. It does not follow a specific regimen in lock-step fashion. Rather, TSI proposes a set of guid

ing principles?a framework that can be implement ed across various reading events in the school day and

applied to different text types. In addition, my experi ences suggest that as teachers adopt TSI, they find a

way to make it work best with their current practices,

structures, and students.

Although the route to becoming an effective and

innovative TSI teacher can be fraught with challenges, I have witnessed teachers who have navigated past

impediments and emerged successfully on the other

side. It does, however, require taking those first few

steps and committing to a road not yet taken?one

that helps students evolve into independent readers.

Note\ I would like to thank Ray Reutzel for reviewing an earlier version of this article.

Brown teaches at Syracuse University, New York,

USA; e-mail rfbrown @syr. edu.

References Almasi, J.F. (2003). Teaching strategic processes in reading. New

York: Guilford.

Anderson, V. (1992). A teacher development project in transac

tional strategy instruction for teachers of severely reading disabled adolescents. Teaching and Teacher Education, 8(4), 391-403.

Brown, R., Pressley, M., Van Meter, P., & Schuder, T. (1996). A quasi

experimental validation of transactional strategies instruction

with low-achieving second-grade readers. Journal of

Educational Psychology, 88(\), 18-37.

Collins, C. (1991). Reading instruction that increases thinking abil

ities. Journal of Reading, 34(1), 510-516.

Dougherty Stahl, K.A. (2004). Proof, practice, and promise:

Comprehension strategy instruction in the primary grades. The

Reading Teacher, 57(7), 598-609.

Duffy, G.G. (2003). Explaining reading: A resource for teaching con

cepts, skills, and strategies. New York: Guilford.

Duke, N., & Pearson, P.D. (2002). Effective practices for developing

reading comprehension. In A.E. Farstrup & S.J. Samuels (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (pp.

205-242). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Ginsburg, M. (1991). Mushroom in the rain. In D. Alvermann, C.A.

Bridge, B.A. Schmidt, L.W. Searfoss, P. Winograd, & S.G. Paris

(Eds.), My best bear hug (pp. 144-154). Lexington, MA: D.C.

Heath.

Hilden, K., & Pressley, M. (2007). Self-regulation through transac

tional strategies instruction. Reading and Writing Quarterly,

23(\), 51-75.

Liang, L.A., & Dole, J.A. (2006). Help with teaching reading com

prehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks. The

Reading Teacher, 59(8), 742-753.

Pressley, M. (n.d.). Comprehension strategies instruction. East

Lansing: Michigan State University; Literacy Achievement

Research Center. Retrieved April 30, 2007, from www.msularc

.org/docu/5-page_comprehension.pdf

Pressley, M. (2002). Comprehension strategies instruction: A turn

of-the-century status report. In C.C. Block & M. Pressley (Eds.),

Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp.

11-27). New York: Guilford.

Pressley, M., & Afflerbach, P.P. (1995). Verbal protocols of read

ing: The nature of constructively responsive reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Pressley, M., El-Dinary, P.B., Gaskins, I., Schuder, T., Bergman, J.L.,

Almasi, J., et al. (1992). Beyond direct explanation: Transactional instruction of reading comprehension strategies. The Elementary SchoolJournal, 92(5), 513-555.

Reutzel, D.R., Smith, J.A., & Fawson, P.C. (2005). An evaluation of

two approaches for teaching reading comprehension strategies in the primary years using science information texts. Early

Childhood Research Quarterly, 20(3), 276-305.

Literature Cited Brett, J. (1989). The mitten. New York: G.P. Putnam.

i www.sittonspelling.coro I

I Your source for- H K fca spelling and word-skills program that

^B addresses state standards-with a FREE WE fl Overview Video package ^H

ASOME WOftDS-a NEW vocabulary mini- S tt coarse series for grades Y and above

S| A sample pages of all our materials HD

I &FREE Instant Activities for classroom use ^H

ft Appleseed Rebecca's FREE e-newsletter IH B with teaching tips and activity ideas

^B


the road not yet taken: a transactional strategies...

Documents